Progress Report 2022-04-24: Crunch So Crunchy!

Hi friends,

As you may have noticed last week, I missed posting a progress report last week. I didn’t intend to skip a week, but because Scene 5 was progressing so well, I decided at the last minute to keep my focus where it was so I could do a more complete update later.

So, without further ado: Some News.

Game Updates

Scene 5 is finished! Wooooo! 🥳

And as things came together a lot faster than I expected, I’m actually a few days ahead of schedule now. I don’t think that has ever been the case in the entire history of this project, so I’ll enjoy it while it lasts. Scene 4 has also been to and from my proofreader and is currently waiting for me to review changes.

Here are the remaining things to do before I can start coding the new material:

• Edit Scene 5 for continuity and other little bits and fixes
• Send Scene 5 to my proofreader
• Create drunk!MC route. This will use pre-existing material from Scene 4 with major changes in how events are described because the MC is inebriated. There’s a different version of the end of the scene that needs to be created specifically for this route.
• Review non-drunk!MC Scenes 4 and 5
• Review drunk!MC route when it’s back from proofreading

Everything is coming together quite quickly, so I am quite confident that I will be able to finish drafting in a week or so. Once I’m good with all the drafted material, I can start the coding process, which typically doesn’t take too long.

I will likely be releasing the new build to the playtester team first to check for obvious errors and bugs that could mess with the continuity of your playthroughs. While they’re looking at that, I’ll be creating any unfinished codex entries so that side of things is finished when the Patreon build updates.

With all that in mind, I’m fairly confident that we’ll be looking at the second week of May as a release window for the next alpha update!

With Episode 2 complete, I’ll be able to (finally) move onto Episode 3. I’ve redone my outlines several times to keep the pace short and to the point. Because Episode 2 can end in multiple ways, Episode 3 will be more about handling the consequences of your choices in the previous episode as you progress through the next stage rather than creating multiple varied consequences itself.

At some point, I will need to set writing aside to do some UI design work. It’s becoming pretty apparent pretty quickly that I need to redo the Journal, Codex, Inventory, Tutorial and Codex pages ASAP. Right now they redirect to their own pages, but to avoid an issue with game history bloat, I need them to open as separate windows overlaid on top of the game's "main" window. I’ve known about this for a while, but just hadn’t decided on the best course of action. I have a few design ideas sketched out, it’s just a matter of sitting down and doing them.

I also want to redesign the companion and faction profiles. I’ve never been happy with how they display and I want to find something that is a little more appealing visually while still containing all the information the player needs.

Patreon Bonus Content

I released my second formal Twine tutorial as this month’s bonus content. It covers SugarCube basics, which I discovered (after making my list of things to talk about) needed to be a lot more in-depth than I had originally thought. Because I split the tutorial in two, I will likely be doing the second half of it next month. This means there may not be a bonus content vote in May (for those in a tier with voting privileges).

I will also be changing how I do tutorials. Patreon’s post editor is unfortunately pretty atrocious for anything long form. You also can’t add code blocks to it, which makes showing sample code difficult. The post editor broke when I tried to post the original tutorial (lesson learned: don't try to post 40 pages of material here... 😅) and I got temporarily kicked out of my account because it thought I was a bot (…fun!!). To make things easier, all tutorials will be available as downloadable PDFs from here on out.

July Hiatus Update

I’m still brainstorming ideas for bonus content posts, but I have decided on a few post ideas/topics I really want to create. I haven’t decided how many of these posts I’m going to do yet as I will need to prep them in June at the same time I’m finishing Episode 3. I want to at least do two so there’s one bonus post for all tiers and one for tiers with bonus content access.

Other Updates

I have been crunching pretty hard to get Episode 2 done. This has been the “crunchiest” month I’ve had since July last year (when I was prepping the last of Episode 1’s material before doing the full UI rehaul… in the middle of a record-breaking heatwave, no air conditioning, and construction blasting happening outside my window. It’s a miracle Episode 1 even exists). The end of an episode is always tough since you reach a point where you just want to be done, but it takes a phenomenal amount of time and effort to get there.

I’ve been feeling the “I just want to be done” frustration since March and, if I’m honest, it’s been a slog to get to this point. There’s been times where I have completely questioned the design of Episode 2’s end and whether certain decisions I made were necessary (after hearing the feedback from my proofreader, I can say that even these decisions made writing extremely painful at times, these were the right choices and will greatly enhance player experience and the story as a whole). However, looking back as I edit, I am very happy with the material I’ve created. I’m really excited for the gameplay elements that will come in with the political intrigue side of things.

And I am looking forward to having the full episode released and in your hands! 💕